We are a commune of inquiring, skeptical, politically centrist, capitalist, anglophile, traditionalist New England Yankee humans, humanoids, and animals with many interests beyond and above politics. Each of us has had a high-school education (or GED), but all had ADD so didn't pay attention very well, especially the dogs. Each one of us does "try my best to be just like I am," and none of us enjoys working for others, including for Maggie, from whom we receive neither a nickel nor a dime. Freedom from nags, cranks, government, do-gooders, control-freaks and idiots is all that we ask for.
Our crack(ed?) technical team at Maggie’s Farm (actually another secret CIA “farm”) has intercepted a secret personal letter just sent by former President George Bush to President Barack Obama.
Dear President Obama:
I’ve kept a respectful public silence about your administration, as you’ve kept silent in contacting me for my experience or any advise. But, I can no longer restrain my urge to thank you for vindicating many of my policies which you criticized during and since your campaign for the presidency.
Yes, I made some mistakes, and corrected some of them. You too have made some mistakes. I wish you the best of luck to correct them.
I must admit that I envy the better position that you are in to do so. I had to manage against a Democrat Congress and hostile press. You now have fewer Democrats to deal with in Congress, many more Republicans now there who are eager to support you with needed policies, and a press which has proven its loyalty to whatever you say.
May I suggest several areas in which you might take advantage of this favorable situation:
Pics from yesterday afternoon. The East Village (not to mention the Lower East Side) has become a wonderful, youthful neighborhood, and the old walk-up "tenements" seem just fine abodes for the youth who flock to NYC although they lack the doormen, gyms with pools, laundry rooms etc. that the new buildings offer. The rents, alas, are not cheap in these old places -
The newfound fervor for human rights among liberal supporters of President Obama’s “kinetic” enterprise in Libya might be better turned to Vietnam. Instead, ignoring the persecution of minorities there and ongoing – indeed, increasing – repression of dissent, they fall into line with US businesses profiting from cheap Vietnamese labor to look away. We ally with Middle East foes of freedom and abandon real seekers of freedom in Vietnam.
During the Vietnam War, the Montagnards -- Vietnam’s Central Highlands hill people, a distinct ethnic and cultural group different than the majority lowland Vietnamese – became strong allies in fighting against the communists. They had long wanted autonomy within Vietnam, and seeking their support Saigon granted them many of their requests.
Since 1975, the communist government of Vietnam has ruthlessly persecuted the Montagnards, imprisoning, torturing, murdering many and taking their lands for roads, plantations and mines, denuding the forests for valuable woods, moving the Montagnards from poverty to rootless impoverishment and loss of culture. Together with many within the government, those with connections and Chinese state businesses profit.
Many Montagnards are devout Protestants, Degar, whose churches are not recognized by the state and whose members come in for particularly harsh punishments. The Montagnard Foundation is their voice in the West, documenting and exposing their persecution. Few listen and fewer care, least of all the US government. Under both presidents Bush and Obama, the US government has looked away, with the myth that somehow Vietnam would be a counterweight to China but actually favoring US businesses that also profit from trade with Vietnam.
I’ve frequently written about this. (See, for example, these at a previous website.) My friend Scott Johnson is a lawyer, writer and human rights activist focusing on tribal peoples from South East Asia. His latest article, awaiting publication, focuses on cables from our ambassador to Vietnam that came to light in the WikiLeaks. The cables in question are from US Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Michalak titled, Vietnam Religious Freedom Update. “Essentially the leaked confidential cables are a testament of betrayal as they blatantly fail to mention the hundreds of tribal Christian Montagnards or Degar people imprisoned in Vietnam….It’s as if the hundreds of Montagnard prisoners never existed….”
Medical schools, these days, are up to around 50% diligent, perfect-student, rule-abiding boring females. Tons of Asians, too. Doctors are no longer mainly the smart Jewish guys and the patrician WASPy guys of the past.
The Association of American Medical Schools wants to change the tests for more diversity. As such things tend to be, I'd guess they want more black and Mexican kids and more gays, and fewer grade-grubbing Asians and white girls.
If I recall, it was a while ago that they changed their tests: they eliminated the "General Information" part of the MCAT, which dealt with history, literature, psychology, culture, etc. That change must have altered the general make-up of medical school classes too: more science nerds and fewer of the potentially-wise priestly class.
But maybe that's what people want from docs these days: expert technicians. It's not for me. I want expertise, but with a heart and soul and some wisdom and flexibility.
It will be airline pilots, next in line, for all of this.
Richard Goldstone's report For the UN on Israel's Cast Lead incursion into Gaza in December and January 2008-2009 has been used by those antagonistic to Israel to charge that Israel acted wantonly against civilians. In Goldstone's Emily Litella moment, his op-ed in the Washington Post says "never mind." As summarized at CNN: "On Gaza, Goldstone essentially says that if he'd known then what he knows now, the report would not have been nearly so hard on Israel." William Jacobson sums that up: "Richard Goldstone Confirms He Was A Useful Idiot."
At the time, Israel and fair-minded governments and individuals carefully exposed the Goldstone Report's bias, distortions and reliance on pro-Hamas sources. This website presents the facts, ignored by the Goldstone Report. The New Republic, a liberal magazine, in a lengthy evaluation of "The Goldstone Illusion", concludes with:
The Goldstone Report as a whole is a terrible document. It is biased and unfair. It offers no help in sorting out the real issues. What methods can Israel--and other countries in similar situations--legitimately apply in the defense of their citizens? To create standards of morality in war that leave a state without the means of legitimate self-protection is politically foolish and morally problematic; but real answers to these real problems cannot be found in the Goldstone Report. What should Israel do when Hezbollah’s more lethal and accurate missiles strike the center of Tel Aviv, causing hundreds of civilian deaths? It is a well-known fact that these missiles are in Hezbollah’s possession, and, when they are fired, it will be from populated villages in Lebanon.
We'll not be holding our breath for apologies from the UN or leftist commentators who praised the Goldstone Report. Indeed, they'll hurl the same spurious charges next time, as every time.
P.S.: Tell us what you really think, John Podhoretz:
That Richard Goldstone did not know in 2009 that Hamas is a terrorist monstrosity which functions parasitically off civilian populaces while Israel is a beacon of war-fighting restraint in a manner practically unknown in the course of human history suggests even more plainly than the report itself that he is a dupe, a fool, a clown, and a worldwide embarrassment. Not to mention a special kind of reprehensible and appalling figure of inglorious, hideous shame to his own people through the delivery and promulgation of a false document that helped anti-Semites everywhere feel themselves justified.
He was then, and is now, an entirely despicable public figure—and so is his op-ed, by the way, which continues to act as though it is appropriate to draw parallel inferences about Hamas and the state of Israel. It would be right for world Jewry that his name be hereafter summoned as we summon Benedict Arnold’s, or Tokyo Rose’s.
On the other hand, or in addition, see this. But, if Goldstone was ignorant or dumb enough to be "rolled" he didn't belong there in the first place, and his mea culpa while nice to have doesn't undo the damage he wrought and furthered. -- Following Goldstone's recent speaking tour at Berkeley, this observation:
Attempting to justify his decision to proceed with the report, Goldstone has claimed to have been given a revised mandate by the rotating UNHRC president. This is clearly false. Of the "36 incidents" investigated by Goldstone, not one relates to the thousands of Palestinian rocket attacks from Gaza, each a war crime targeting Israeli citizens....In his Berkeley presentation, Goldstone reportedly stated that "the powerful don't like to be looked at and judged." Goldstone is a powerful individual, and in failing to address the overwhelming and substantive criticism -- and moving far too slowly, if at all, to correct the enormous damage that he has caused -- Judge Goldstone continues to abuse his power.
Naturally, they will do it politically, not rationally. What would anybody expect? How many experienced venture capitalists do they have on board?
Fact is, there is a ton of loose venture capital out there, looking for things to invest in and to support, from hi-tech to low-tech. Scouring the entire planet for interesting opportunities and good ideas. The difference is that they know what to look for, and the government is just looking to buy votes and to throw our hard-earned money at crap. It's not a joke, but it is.
Very good essay on the fate of Detroit - and similar cities - by Wretchard: The Field of Dreams. A quote:
Mayor Bing’s plan to build developments recalls nothing so much as the South Seas cargo cults who believed all that was necessary to make the skies rain with goodies was to build a dirt airstrip and palm-leaf control tower to attract resupply flights from somewhere. “If you build it, they will come”.
Who “they” is remains unclear. But they are out there.
As Glenn Reynolds said (who he quotes):
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them.
Change rarely comes from the outside, in. Recall "urban renewal." Now, those brownstone "slums" that didn't get torn down go for millions in New York, while the "modern" and "dignified" public housing projects are nightmares, socio-cultural wastelands which even cops are reluctant to enter.
The New York Times reports that the Palestinian Center for Human Rights “took the unusual step this week of condemning the building and storage of anti-Israel rockets in densely populated areas, a practice that has led to injuries and deaths of civilians.”
“Unusual” isn’t quite the word for it. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights also supports Hamas and its affiliated terrorists “resistance” to Israel, and regularly condemns Israel for militarily reacting. In 2008, this NGO, financed by Western NGOs, also criticized the stockpiling and firing into Israel from populated locations in Gaza. Less populated areas in Gaza should, instead, be the depots and firing positions.
What’s missing from the Palestinian Center for Human Rights criticism, and from the New York Times report?
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights doesn’t condemn the rocket and mortar firing into Israel, and the New York Times doesn’t mention that.
The increased import of longer-range rockets into Gaza now land in the large city of Beersheba, and, as seen in the latest firings last week, now puts the southern area of Tel Aviv and Israel’s major port at Ashdod into range. They may soon reach to Jerusalem. See this map.
Even Human Rights Watch, a consistent severe critic of Israel, condemns the rocket attacks from Gaza into Israel: “Deliberate or indiscriminate attacks against civilians are serious violations of the laws of war. Such attacks committed willfully - that is, intentionally or recklessly - are war crimes.” (more here) The New York Times report, also, doesn’t mention that.
For now, Israel doesn't want to serve as an excuse for anti-Israel propagandists to distract from the revolts against Arab satraps. Eventually, however, Israel will have to take more serious measures against the Gaza sanctuary for indiscriminate rocket and mortar attacks. You can be sure that pro-Palestinian NGOs, their funders and supporters in the UN, and the Western media will condemn Israel for “over-reaction” or “disproportionate use of force” or “civilians killed in Gaza” and such, as they did when Israel last went into Gaza to suppress Hamas and the firing sites. Seldom if at all mentioned will be that Hamas brought it upon itself and Gazans or that Israel had no other realistic alternative, at least if it wants to protect its own civilians and survive.
Oh, BTW, don't forget the almost 1000 weapons depots, bunkers and OP sites in 250 villages in southern Lebanon set up by Hezbollah -- answering to the same Iranian armers as Hamas, and likely to act in concert with Hamas when Israel enters Gaza again.
Don't bother reading this unless you are on the same page, or pages, that I am on this Lent. My musings and meanderings will bore you, and I do not understand my own religion very well, despite trying to.
As I understand it, to enter God's Kingdom one must die (in a metaphorical sense) and be reborn (in the spiritual sense). By "God's Kingdom" I mean living in Christ today, not in any hereafter.
"He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it."Matthew 10:39
The losing is like a dying of Self, along with an abandonment of one's worldly idols. "Self" is the modern totem and object of psychological and material worship, so that part is fairly difficult for me and, I assume, for all of us. A sort of suicide, or partial suicide. Displeased as I tend to be with my self, I am sort of attached to the old darn thing too. "Self," "identity," individuality," - all that current narcissistic "special Me" psychobabble.
I know I am making it all too black and white, as if we could ever not be who we are, or become like the zombie Moonies in the subway stations. But Jesus understood very well that devotion to self was an obstacle to a connection with God.
John 3:3: Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
The Christian offer is to kill off one's self and to be reborn in Christ to live a Kingdom life. The endeavor is not for sissies.
From Matthew 12:
18And Jesus, walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea: for they were fishers.
19And he saith unto them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.
20And they straightway left their nets, and followed him.
21And going on from thence, he saw other two brethren, James the son of Zebedee, and John his brother, in a ship with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
22And they immediately left the ship and their father, and followed him.
Leave my ship and my father? Can we discuss this, Jesus? And from Luke 9:
The tension between the practical, material world and the Kingdom is ever-present, and all rationalizations for loving this world as I often do sound like convenient and self-justifying cop-outs to me. Thus, I am unfit. Therefore, I require grace.
Sipp informed me that the historic landmark, The Hotel Harris, is for sale. It seems to be more of a boarding house, or SRO, or apartment house, than a hotel these days.
Downtown Rumford is half boarded-up, but the hotel houses Brian's Bistro, which I am told is quite good. Haddock cooked three ways on the menu.
Cafe Boeuf? Naw. Rumford isn't Lake Wobegon. Is it? We may hate Garrison Keillor's sanctimony and condescension when it comes to politics, but otherwise he can be darn perceptive and amusing in his fiction.
Antisocial Personality. I miss it all the time. I am posting this in the hope that this will help deter me from missing it in the future.
AVI claims you can tell criminals by their faces, but I am not talking about serious criminals. I am talking about the effective manipulators, seducers, schemers, and deceivers and not the obvious violent and stupid people who end up in jails.
I get burned by such people on a regular basis. I like to think it's because I tend to think the best of people, but it's really probably my naivete.
Not all people with antisocial traits are axe-murderers. Most are ordinary liars, users, con-artists, self-servers, etc., and they often do not realize themselves that they are off base and living in their own amoral reality with all of their rationalizations for their behavior. The problem with the personality disorders is that people with them think they are normal. Sociopathy is a very common personality disorder, and often associated with glibness and a sort of disarming appeal that many people fall for.
Yes, everybody lies sometimes. I am not talking about that. I am talking about deceit and conniving as a way of life. Politics, for an example.
I always get suspicious when they call me "Doc" at first. I take it as an intrusive presumption of intimacy which I have not invited. Do not call your physician "Doc," except on the golf course. "Doctor" is OK.
The only real cure is religion, but that is only if, and after, they have somehow come to realize how off-base they are in their take on life, their relative indifference to others, and their self-centeredness.
In recent years, we have learned that Antisocial Personality traits derive as much from upbringing as from genetics. I think we wanted to believe it was all genetic. How it all works, I do not understand. All I know is to Beware, because these people will turn around and hurt you without thinking twice about it.
The failure of blue social policy to create an environment which works for Blacks is the most devastating possible indictment of the 20th century liberal enterprise in the United States. Helping Blacks achieve the kind of equality and opportunity long denied them was more than one of many justifications for blue social policy: it was the defining moral task that has challenged and shaped American liberalism for the last fifty years.
The Census tells us that in the eyes of those who know best, these well intentioned efforts failed. Instead of heaven, we have hell across America’s inner cities. Blue economic policy has cut the creation of new private sector jobs to a trickle in our great cities, while the high costs of public union urban services (and policies that favor government employees over the citizenry at large) impose crippling taxes and contribute to the ruinously high costs that blight opportunity. All the social welfare bureaucracies, diversity counselors and minority set-asides can’t make up for the colossal failure of blue social policy to create sustainable lower middle class prosperity in our cities.
I do not agree with some of what Mead says in his essay, but it's an interesting piece. I am more of the Moynihan persuasion; to get government out of the way. I do wonder, however, how come every minimart and deli and coffee shop and dry cleaners I see opening is opened by new immigrant Moslems who hardly speak English, instead of by American black folk who have attended American schools and speak English. Despite the Leftist assaults, I suppose, family remains the cornerstone of civilized, structured, and productive life. If you do not build supportive bonds with the people you create, no government can save your life, your soul, or provide you with dignity.
You have to half-crazy to move to Rumford, Maine. Hardly anybody moves to Maine anymore, much less Rumford. Maybe Portland, for a summertime-only retirement (six months plus one day in Florida, and no state income taxes to pay - and estate tax advantages to when you get to that point).
Winter is a wonderful, lovely thing, but, unless you are a skiier, it goes on too long up there. (However, we were 26 degrees F this morning down here, thanks to the crisis of Global Cooling.) You cannot grow tomatoes in your garden up there unless you build a greenhouse but that's not too hard - you just throw a couple of layers of polyurethane over some old boards in the sun next to the back of the house. "Just put some bleachers out in the sun..."
The Northeast is full of dying old towns where the best jobs are government jobs and where industry has fled for friendlier climes with friendlier taxation. In my opinion, if you move to a place in the hinterlands with a 6,000 population, you had really better love your spouse - and your family.
Little old Rumford is fortunate, however, to have its own online newspaper, the Rumford Meteor. It's good for keeping up with the town's main forms of recreation, which appear to be DUI and marijuana. However, from the reports, towns like Rumford still have their cadres of good old reserved and private Yankee small town folk who go to church and whose kids will play football and go to wars and want to work. They will mostly leave town, for sure, but some won't.
When I think about it, I realize that maybe I have to be at least half-crazy to live where I live, too. But my friends are here - and my church and my work - and I can get to good olde NYC once in a while - so I guess I will stay put. Nothing is perfect.
For me, Maine means grouse hunting and Moose filet mignon and Bert and I. I've heard that Sugarloaf is great, but never tried it. Too long of a drive, and the delights of skiing are hassle enough.
I grew up on The New York Times. Delivered, every morning, even before they had a national edition. Read it every morning, through high school and college. An essential part of breakfast.
The second factor in the Times’s decline was the ascension of Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. to the perch of publisher in 1992. Having come of age in the sixties counterculture, Sulzberger moved to shift the paper’s focus from its historical commitment of reporting the news “without fear or favor” to the more activist promise to “enhance society.” In particular, Sulzberger wanted the paper to promote “diversity” and to move beyond what he disparaged as the “predominantly white, straight, male version of events.” As the author of Coloring the News, a critical look at the politically correct mania for “diversity” and its damaging effect on the news media, McGowan writes as an authority on the Times’s transformation. The change was most obvious in the paper’s increasingly strident editorial pages, but the news content, which began taking its cues from editorial, suffered as well. Times veterans groused that the paper risked compromising its news coverage with a newly ideological agenda, but Sulzberger dismissed such concerns, declaring that he was “setting a moral standard.”
A newspaper's job to set a moral standard? Grandiose? How about just giving us the real facts with tough, skeptical, half-drunk cranky journalists instead of metrosexual twits, and we'll take care of the morality part ourselves. We're Americans, not illiterate ignoramuses who need to be taught how to think correctly by our superiors who filter and slant our information "for our own good." Propagandists, exploiting their historic franchise.
I quit The Times years ago because it would make me begin my day in an irritable mood. Irritated with them for quitting their job. Now, I catch up with Maggie's for breakfast, and so does She Who Must Be Obeyed. Imagine that!
It is politically risky to try to be a responsible politician (and most politicians don't want to have to go back to real, productive jobs unless all it is is to be a lunching lobbyist rainmaker). See Politico's Govs face budget blowback.
Better just keep borrowing from the Chinese until they own the US. Let our kids worry about it.
I keep saying that the "entitlement mentality" is not just a problem here; it's a problem in the entire industrialized world. England, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, the USA...governments are beggaring themselves (and their productive taxpaying citizens) trying to fund their brobdingnagian welfare-state apparatus.
As Steyn said in our link this morning: "The collapse of the Entitlement State is not going to be pretty."
This state of childishness, this dependency explains the stunningly supine acceptance of the take over of Sweden by an alien human horde that couldn’t be more incompatible with Sweden’s centuries-old culture even if they rode around on giraffes and lived off boiled vulture. Getting your mouth on the tit is Job No. 1 and daddy and mommy will take care of any unpleasantness, notwithstanding the complete absence of evidence that mommy and daddy want to take care of the Unpleasantness in Question.
I use Preen on our perennial beds and shrub borders. I think Mrs. BD, the Weeder-in-Chief, appreciates it, but my Mom gives me heck for using it since she views it as lazy and possibly not environmentally acceptable.
As I understand it, it mainly prevents seeds from germinating. What's wrong with that? Yes, we mulch too, but seeds germinate in mulch.
Weeding plantings to make fresh space for the new weeds no longer interests me. I'd rather be playing tennis.
How can you rate schools by graduation rates? All a school has to do to raise graduation rates is to pass more people. Give them As for showing up. "When all else fails, lower your standards."
Profs who want to keep their jobs will cooperate with that. Seen it many times. It has become extremely difficult to flunk out of colleges these days, even if you try to major in Beer Pong, and whether you play a varsity sport or not. "All shall have prizes." Then, if you are lucky, you might get a cubicle with a computer screen in some HR department.
Ah get born, keep warm Short pants, romance, learn to dance Get dressed, get blessed Try to be a success Please her, please him, buy gifts Don’t steal, don’t lift Twenty years of schoolin’ And they put you on the day shift...
"Twenty years of school and then they put you on the day shift." Unless you are of an energetic American entrepreneurial bent, and want to make things happen instead of letting them happen to you. People with true grit create jobs, they don't look for jobs. Even in a crappy Obameconomy.
Everybody always ought to think about what they can do to build something useful or interesting, now or in the future. That's the American Way. Failure is just a necessary learning experience. I have had costly failures, but I kept plugging away until things worked out and Life knocked some sense into me. Anybody can do that if they want to, and it keeps life stimulating and challenging.
Failure is the best teacher. Success teaches us little - except to keep doing the same thing over and over, like GM and Microsoft and Kodak. Giving up on life's endless opportunities is like a form of death.
- the attitude that society should be governed by an elite group of individuals
- 1. The belief that certain persons or members of certain classes or groups deserve favored treatment by virtue of their perceived superiority, as in intellect, social status, or financial resources. 2. (A) The sense of entitlement enjoyed by such a group or class. ...
- someone who believes in rule by an elite group
Well, if you perused my pedigree, resume, career, J. Press tweedy and conservative life style, and the respectable, intelligent, accomplished, well-educated, well-behaved and refined people with whom I tend to associate, some might consider me one of America's elite. Given the definitions I found, however, I am not: I have no interest in power or control over anybody, and despise anybody who thinks they deserve that position. I lack all desire to tell anybody how to live other than myself, and I am not even especially good at that. Beneath my superficial aspects beats the simple heart of my free, crusty and cantankerous independent Yankee farmer ancestors who had far more freedom than we have today.
For example, when it comes to politics, the only politicians I trust are the crooked ones. They don't seek power over me and have no plans to make my life "better" - they just want money, chicks, easy jobs without meaningful accountability, and maybe some support for their weak egos. Let them have that if that's what they need, just so long as they leave me, my life, and my hard-earned assets alone. I will not be an obedient and passive serf like some of my Brit ancestors doubtless were, sending most of their grain or wool to their superiors.
We are not an aristocracy here. Let the elites figure out how to run their own lives (in general, I am not impressed), instead of trying to run mine. A few relevant links:
A Delta pilot’s story written by a Delta pilot on approach to Tokyo during the earthquake, forwarded thru CTV Television:
I'm currently still in one piece, writing from my room in the Narita crew hotel. It's 8am. This is my inaugural trans-pacific trip as a brand new, recently checked out, international 767 Captain and it has been interesting, to say the least, so far. I've crossed the Atlantic three times so far so the ocean crossing procedures were familiar.
By the way, stunning scenery flying over the Aleutian Islands. Everything was going fine until 100 miles out from Tokyo and in the descent for arrival. The first indication of any trouble was that Japan air traffic control started putting everyone into holding patterns. At first we thought it was usual congestion on arrival. Then we got a company data link message advising about the earthquake, followed by another stating Narita airport was temporarily closed for inspection and expected to open shortly (the company is always so positive).
From our perspective things were obviously looking a little different. The Japanese controller's anxiety level seemed quite high and he said expect "indefinite" holding time. No one would commit to a time frame on that so I got my copilot and relief pilot busy looking at divert stations and our fuel situation, which, after an ocean crossing is typically low.
It wasn't long, maybe ten minutes, before the first pilots started requesting diversions to other airports. Air Canada, American, United, etc. all reporting minimal fuel situations. I still had enough fuel for 1.5 to 2.0 hours of holding. Needless to say, the diverts started complicating the situation.
Japan air traffic control then announced Narita was closed indefinitely due to damage. Planes immediately started requesting arrivals into Haneada, near Tokyo, a half dozen JAL and western planes got clearance in that direction but then ATC announced Haenada had just closed. Uh oh! Now instead of just holding, we all had to start looking at more distant alternatives like Osaka, or Nagoya.
One bad thing about a large airliner is that you can't just be-pop into any little airport. We generally need lots of runway. With more planes piling in from both east and west, all needing a place to land and several now fuel critical ATC was getting over-whelmed. In the scramble, and without waiting for my fuel to get critical, I got my flight a clearance to head for Nagoya, fuel situation still okay. So far so good. A few minutes into heading that way, I was "ordered" by ATC to reverse course. Nagoya was saturated with traffic and unable to handle more planes (read- airport full). Ditto for Osaka.
With that statement, my situation went instantly from fuel okay, to fuel minimal considering we might have to divert a much farther distance. Multiply my situation by a dozen other aircraft all in the same boat, all making demands requests and threats to ATC for clearances somewhere. Air Canada and then someone else went to "emergency" fuel situation. Planes started to heading for air force bases. The nearest to Tokyo was Yokoda AFB. I threw my hat in the ring for that initially. The answer - Yokoda closed! no more space.
A friend who recently moved to New England from Texas asked me for a few good long-weekend getaway spots (to get away from their kids for romance, with good food and good hiking, regardless of season). It's important to couples to get away from it all - daily life routine, internet, rug rats, dogs, - to refresh the relationship.
I don't really like to stay in an inn without a fireplace in the room, but off the top of my head, I offered these (with a range of luxuriousness), although I am sure readers have their own lists of favorites:
What is needed is a renewed humility. We are not the masters of the sources of happiness; they ever elude the appointments we make with them, springing up when we least expect them and fleeing when we would hold them close. The excessive ambition to expunge all that is weak or broken in body or mind, to control moods and states of soul, sadness, chagrin, moments of emptiness—all this runs up against our finitude, against the inertia of the human species, which we cannot manipulate like some raw material. We have the power to avoid or to heal certain evils, yes, but we cannot order happiness as if it were a meal in a restaurant.
The Western cult of happiness is indeed a strange adventure, something like a collective intoxication. In the guise of emancipation, it transforms a high ideal into its opposite. Condemned to joy, we must be happy or lose all standing in society. It is not a question of knowing whether we are more or less happy than our ancestors; our conception of the thing itself has changed, and we are probably the first society in history to make people unhappy for not being happy.
Readers know that, much as I value whatever joy and contentment come my way, I find "happiness" difficult to define and, furthermore, do not view it as a particularly meaningful or important goal of life as if is often defined. For example, if performing painful or sacrificial duties is what is satisfying to you, then how can you construct a universal definition of "happiness" when the word may mean "ease and comfort" to another person?
Sometimes I think morality is purely culturally-defined, and sometimes I think there is "natural law." Most of the time I simply try to adhere to God via the Ten Commandments and Christ's teachings (Mark 12:28):
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?" "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."
If you are a Christian, those are the revealed word of God. If not, they are cultural. I know when I have done wrong because I feel guilt and shame. Sometimes I feel guilt and shame even when I haven't transgressed in any meaningful way. That's me, not God.
Sipp found this little ad for Whistler-Blackcomb, and I'm sure our kids and the friends we skiied with there will recognize the spots. Best skiing I've ever had, with fresh powder daily.
After a couple of days, we tended toward the Blackcomb side, but maybe partly because they had closed the very top of Whistler for dynamiting for avalanches. Cool. We did have fun skiing off a cliff and landing in powder over our heads. Sheesh. That was good for some giggles (later), trying to find one's poles and hats, etc.
Sipp correctly identified the video as "tilt-shift." That's new term to me.
I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, I reflected as I filled it lovingly with seed. First came the chickadees and then within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food.
But then the birds started building nests in the boards of the patio, above the table, and next to the barbecue.
Then came the poop. It was everywhere: on the patio tile, the chairs, the table. Everywhere!
Then some of the birds turned mean. They would dive bomb me and try to peck me even though I had fed them out of my own pocket.
Other birds were boisterous and loud. They sat on the feeder and squawked and screamed at all hours of the day and demanded that I fill it when it got low on food.
After a while, I couldn't even sit on my own back porch anymore. So I took down the bird feeder and in three days the birds were gone. I cleaned up their mess and took down the many nests they had built all over the patio.
Soon, the back yard was like it used to be: quiet and serene.
Now let's see. Our government gives out free food, subsidized housing, free medical care, free education and allows anyone born here to be an automatic citizen.
Then the illegals came by the tens of thousands. Suddenly, our taxes went up to pay for free services; small apartments are housing 5 families; and you have to wait 6 hours to be seen by an emergency room doctor. Your child's 2nd grade class is behind other schools because over half the class doesn't speak English.
Corn flakes now come in a bilingual box; I have to 'press one' to hear my bank talk to me in English, and people waving flags other than 'Old Glory' are squawking and screaming in the streets, demanding more rights and free liberties.
Just my opinion, but maybe it's time for the government to take down the bird feeder.
Photo is from Best Nest, the official Maggie's Farm-endorsed source for bird houses and bird feeders
My Lenten discipline this year focuses on gratitude.
I am disappointed by my tendency to get exasperated whenever something goes wrong in life, while taking for granted the 99.9% of things that go OK. For example, car goes 125,000 miles and provides a good service. Needs a new transmission? "Sh-t. Dammit. What a pain." Unexpected problems are always cropping up.
It's as if I carry some implicit expectation, hidden in the back of my mind, that life is or should be smooth and go right all the time. A sort of infantile utopian assumption probably partly engendered by growing up safe and comfortable in America in the 20th Century. It's a flaw, and I plan on going to war against it with gratitude for everything that goes well. For example, the fact that my heart continues to beat steadily and miraculously while I accept - and expect - that it cannot do so indefinitely.
Given time, some things will always go wrong or not work out well. When I am forced to be honest with myself, many of the things that go wrong are at least partly my own damn fault anyway, due to laziness, stubborness, poor judgement, boneheaded or wrong impulses, lack of planning, character defects, stupidity, ignorance, etc.
It's the opposite of the Wild Turkey phenomenon. People tell me that Turkey hunting must be easy, because they see Turkeys all the time. I remind them of all the times they don't see Turkeys - and tell them that's what most Turkey hunting is like.
Medical schools, these days, are up to around 50% diligent, perfect-student, rule-abiding boring females. Tons of Asians, too. Doctors are no longer mainly the smart Jewish guys and the patrician WASPy guys of the past. 
Don't bother reading this unless you are on the same page, or pages, that I am on this Lent. My musings and meanderings will bore you, and I do not understand my own religion very well, despite trying to.
Sipp informed me that the historic landmark, 
GOP Appears 
I use Preen on our perennial beds and shrub borders. I think Mrs. BD, the Weeder-in-Chief, appreciates it, but my Mom gives me heck for using it since she views it as lazy and possibly not environmentally acceptable. 
I'm currently still in one piece, writing from my room in the Narita crew hotel. It's 8am. This is my inaugural trans-pacific trip as a brand new, recently checked out, international 767 Captain and it has been interesting, to say the least, so far. I've crossed the Atlantic three times so far so the ocean crossing procedures were familiar.
Bruckner subtitles his essay in City Journal: 
I bought a bird feeder. I hung it on my back porch and filled it with seed. What a beauty of a bird feeder it was, I reflected as I filled it lovingly with seed. First came the chickadees and then within a week we had hundreds of birds taking advantage of the continuous flow of free and easily accessible food. 
My Lenten discipline this year focuses on gratitude.